New player allows you to watch films, record TV shows, Net surf and more

Gillian Shaw
Sun

1. Gen 5 Portable Media Players, Archos, $170 to $500

In case you feel the need to carry 200 full-length moves in your pocket, you’ll be looking for the 160 GB version of these new Archos PMPs scheduled to hit the market this September. For movie viewers with a more modest budget the new players start with a two GB version good for two movies. The new generation 5 WiFi line also lets you download movies, TV shows and music from any wireless hotspot using the Archos content portal. Record TV shows, stream and watch videos from your PC – all this and surf the web on its high-resolution 4.3-inch touch screen.

2. Bluetooth MBW-150 Bluetooth watches, Sony Ericsson

For the true geek-at-heart, why operate your mobile phone from your phone – let your watch do the walking. Compatible with a number of Sony Ericsson phones including the new W580 Walkman phone, these watches come in three flavours – the MusicEdition, the ExecutiveEdition and the ClassicEdition. When a call or text message comes in, the watch vibrates on your wrist and you can reject or mute the call by touching a button. Great for meetings when you don’t want the boss to know your date is calling about plans for dinner. Or use it as a remote control for your music phone when it’s not in your pocket. Prices aren’t available yet for these watches, which are coming out in the fourth quarter of this year.

3. Coors Light Cold Certified Can

An indispensable innovation for those long hot days of summer, the beer can that tells you when your beer is the perfect temperature to drink. The Coors Light Mountain icon turns from white to ice blue, your clue that the beer has been chilled to four degrees Celsius or less. Comes in 355-ml and 473 ml-cans.

4. KEF Universal Wireless System, $700 for two receivers and a transmitter

Home theatre surround sound is great until you start tripping over all the wires that are strung out like a minefield in the TV room. KEF has come up with a wireless system that can transform an existing system into a wireless one. It works with any standard speaker system. If you want to completely redo your surround sound, the company also has a wireless kit that is tailor-made for its KHT5005.2 speakers system, which includes the HTB2 subwoofer. That speaker system is $2,500, with the add-on kit another $700.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

VITO PILIECI
Sun

OTTAWA — When American technology fans head out to get their iPhone fix Friday night, Canadians could be left with a severe case of I- envy.

The new cellphone from Apple Inc. is being sold only in the U. S., and Apple Canada says there are no current plans for a Canadian launch.

The device isn’t the first music- player, laptop computer and cellphone rolled into one, but by building on Apple’s IPod player, it has has some big attractions – stylish looks, a dead- simple user interface and access to the huge iTunes song library.

Complaints from Canadians about its lack of availability are jamming Internet chat rooms. Some say they will buy iPhones in the United States to use on the Rogers Wireless cellular network, which uses the same GSM technology as AT& T, the device’s U. S. carrier.

“ I’m not rich but I saved up 2k to get two phones with all accessories,” wrote one, going by the name Cuzz323, on the Ehmac. ca forum.

Getting a unit could be difficult, however, at least in the next few weeks. Potential buyers are already lining up, and analysts expect the new phone will sell out within hours of going on sale at 6 p. m. Friday.

And getting it to work in Canada could be even harder.

“ I wish them the best of luck,” said Carmi Levy, senior vice- president of strategic consulting for Toronto research company AR Communications Inc. “ There is no guarantee that the product will work the way it is suppose to.”

Like most cellphones, the iPhone has been electronically “ locked” to work only on one network. According to reports, it will not accept SIM cards from other networks, such as Rogers.

Odette Coleman, a spokeswoman for Rogers Wireless, warned iPhone fanatics that the phone could be nothing more than an expensive paperweight in Canada right now. It costs $ 499 to $ 599 US, depending on model.

“ Since the iPhone has been optimized to function on the AT& T [ Cingular] network, we don’t know the issues the customer would face,” she said.

“ As an example, it is likely that data applications would not be possible and the voice function would not be optimized for our network, which could mean a lot of dropped calls and compromised reception.”

Coleman noted that it is against Rogers policy to unlock the phones of other networks. She refused to comment on what Rogers employees will do if people manage to unlock their iPhones and demand that Rogers activate the phones on its network.

 

Edward C. Baig
USA Today

The mania over Apple’s iPhone launch has created stratospheric expectations that are near impossible to live up to. Yet with a few exceptions, this expensive, glitzy wunderkind is indeed worth lusting after.

That’s saying a lot. After months of hype, Apple has delivered a prodigy — a slender fashion phone, a slick iPod and an Internet experience unlike any before it on a mobile handset.

Still, iPhone isn’t perfect, or even the most ideal smartphone for every user. It’s pricey. It lacks certain features found on some rival devices. AT&T’s coverage was spotty in some areas I tested over the past two weeks. Your employer may prevent you from receiving corporate e-mail on the device.

For consumers who can afford one ($499 or $599, plus the cost of a two-year wireless plan with exclusive carrier AT&T), iPhone is by far the most chic cellphone I’ve seen. And there are terrific reasons — besides announcing to neighbors how cool you are — to try to nab the device when it finally goes on sale at Apple and AT&T stores at 6 p.m. local time Friday across the country.

For starters, iPhone is a breeze to set up and fun to use, evident from the moment you slide your finger across the screen to unlock it. It’s a wonderful widescreen iPod and fabulous picture viewer. Smart sensors change the orientation of the display from portrait to landscape mode, based on how you hold the device and what you are doing at the time. Once you get the hang of its “multitouch” interface — give it a few days — you won’t have to schlep a separate iPod and cellphone in your pocket.

No question, the iPhone is striking to look at. The revelation is that it’s also comfortable to hold and touch. Mostly black and silver with a stainless-steel bezel surrounding the top surface, it’s light (under 5 ounces) and less than a half-inch thick, or roughly two iPod Nanos placed on top of each other. It’s a little taller and wider than a Nano.

The scratch-resistant glass-top surface protects iPhone’s gorgeous 3.5-inch touch-screen display, which I found visible even in direct sun.

The most remarkable thing about iPhone is what’s missing: a physical dialing keypad and/or full qwerty, or traditional, keyboard.

Instead, either a virtual keypad or keyboard shows up on the iPhone screen, depending on what you are doing — entering a Web address, for instance, or banging out a text message.

No stylus is provided. Your fingers control everything; you “tap,” “flick” and “pinch.”

Finger-tapping takes getting used to. Best advice: Start typing with one finger before graduating to two thumbs. You also have to learn to trust the device; an intelligent virtual keyboard auto-corrects mistakes on the fly and anticipates what you will type next to try to prevent you from making a mistake.

Though you’re frequently touching the display, I didn’t notice fingerprints when iPhone is on.

Only a few physical buttons of any type are onboard. A “home” button on the front leads you to the screen with iPhone’s main icons, including ones for stocks and weather. On the side is a ring/silent switch and separate volume control. On top is an on/off switch.

Apple points out that iPhone’s features — unlike other cellphones — can be upgraded in the future through software. The phone is built on top of the same OS X operating system that is on its Macintosh computers. You sync up the device to a PC or Mac through iTunes just like an iPod. A USB dock is supplied for this purpose.

Network: Wi-Fi is saving grace

You know by now that AT&T is iPhone’s exclusive wireless carrier. Start plotting your exit strategy if you want one and are in the middle of a long-term contract with the Verizons or Sprints of the world.

In techie terms, iPhone is a “quad-band GSM” phone, meaning you can operate it overseas. (You’ll have to tell AT&T to turn on international roaming.) Voice coverage was so-so in my New Jersey neighborhood and, for the most part, decent in New York City.

On the data side, it works through AT&T’s Edge network, which is pokey compared with third-generation, or 3G, data networks used with other phones. At times, I fell off the Edge and lost coverage. Even at its best, Edge never felt close to the broadband-type speeds I experience on my home network. Assuming Apple gets around to supporting 3G in the future, you’d ultimately have to buy a new 3G-capable iPhone for improved network performance, not that Apple is ready to announce one.

IPhone’s saving grace for data is Wi-Fi, if you have access to a hot spot. It automatically determines the fastest network it comes across (Wi-Fi or Edge). A virtual keyboard pops up if a Wi-Fi network password is required. Once you’re on Wi-Fi, you can zip around the Web, send e-mail, etc. Several times, a confusing “could not activate Edge” message appeared on the screen, though I was in my home office with Wi-Fi.

The phone: No keyboard? No problem

I expected to miss the tactile feel that a physical keyboard provides. I didn’t. Making calls was surprisingly simple. You can flick through your list of contacts or favorites (iPhone’s equivalent to speed dialing) and then tap on a name to make a call or send a text message. The keys of the virtual keypad are large enough so that dialing a number manually — or punching in a code to access voice mail remotely — is easy. I rarely made a mistake.

You can hold a conference call with up to five people. There’s a speaker phone. While on a call, you can tap the “home” button to access other iPhone applications.

Too bad iPhone has no voice-recognition or voice-dialing capability.

One of the best features is visual voice mail. It lets you prioritize the messages you hear first — from your spouse or boss, say — rather than listen in the order in which messages arrived. Just tap on caller names to hear their message; tap “call back” to return the call.

Music: Apple’s best iPod

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has called iPhone the best iPod that Apple has ever made. I agree, unless you want to carry a music library larger than either the 4- or 8-gigabyte iPhone can hold (800 and 1,800 songs or so, respectively, depending on the other content on the device). There’s no memory slot for adding storage.

Much as I like the famous scroll wheel on regular iPods, you won’t miss it here. (There’s not even a virtual version.) Tapping various icons to access iPod playlists, artists, songs, albums, audiobooks, podcasts and so on is a breeze. Album art looks terrific on the big display.

When tapping an album cover as a song plays, music controls such as shuffle and repeat are displayed. Tap again, and they disappear.

Rotate iPhone to its side, and the sensors work their magic: The screen automatically shifts into the clever Cover Flow view, letting you rapidly “flick,” or browse, through your entire collection. Tap on an album cover to view a tracks list. This is the first iPod with Cover Flow, though the feature exists in iTunes.

Of course, you don’t have to stare at album covers while the music’s playing. You might surf the Web, peruse pictures of your kids or even use iPhone’s calculator instead.

I experienced one snag playing music. A song wound up in an endless loop. I had to turn iPhone off to restore order.

Through iTunes, you transfer songs and other content onto iPhone by connecting it to a computer with iTunes. Here’s what you can’t do: buy songs wirelessly “over-the-air” as with some music phones. And while you can choose from 25 ring tones on the device, you won’t be able to purchase other ring tones for iPhone at launch or use songs from your own library as ring tones, presumably a rights issue that will be solved eventually.

IPhone has halfway decent internal speakers for listening if you set the thing down. You’re more likely to plug in the supplied stereo earbuds. The headset includes an integrated button to control iPod playback, or to answer and end phone calls. It also has a mic for calling purposes. Music pauses when a call comes in.

Lots of people (me included) eschew iPod earbuds in favor of their own headphones. Now the bad news: They may not work. Because of how the connector is designed on the Shure headphones I use, I could not fit them into the iPhone headphone jack. Shure is readying a $40 accessory that would let you plug in its headphones and use them for voice. Though iPhone has Bluetooth capabilities for connecting to hands-free headphones, it does not support wireless Bluetooth stereo. I successfully used iPhone with the Jawbone Bluetooth headset from Aliph.

Video: YouTube, yes; iPod games, no

You can watch movies, music videos, podcasts and TV shows synced through iTunes. When watching, tap once to bring up onscreen controls and double-tap to toggle between widescreen and full-screen modes. Movies and videos play in landscape mode. For now, no other iPod does widescreen.

Movies can eat up a lot of space. When I finished watching A Bug’s Life, iPhone offered to remove it from the device to free up some.

IPhone provides a wireless connection to YouTube. You can watch the most-viewed streaming videos and search for others. More than 10,000 videos will be available at launch; YouTube expects to encode the full catalog into a format iPhone can recognize by fall. You can easily share YouTube links by e-mail.

Games sold in the iTunes store for the iPod are not compatible.

Photos: Pictures look great

Pictures look fabulous on iPhone. The device syncs images stored on iPhoto software on the Mac or a designated picture folder on a Windows PC.

A flick of the thumb lets you pore through your entire picture collection in a jiffy. You can easily e-mail pictures, add them to contacts or use images as the phone’s background, or “wallpaper.” If you rotate iPhone sideways, the photo automatically switches from portrait to landscape mode. Pinch a picture on the screen to enlarge or make it smaller. Neat stuff.

IPhone comes with a decent 2-megapixel digital camera. But it lacks a flash or zoom and doesn’t let you shoot video. Taking pictures is a tad awkward.

The Internet: It’s the real thing, with limitations

This is the closest thing to the real-deal Internet that I’ve seen on a pocket-size device — but there are limits.

IPhone runs Apple’s Safari browser. You can view full Web pages, then double-tap the screen to zoom in. Or pinch to make text larger. Sliding your finger moves the page around. Rotating iPhone lets you view a page widescreen. IPhone syncs bookmarks off a PC or Mac.

You can open more than one Web page, flicking left or right to view them.

But for all you could do with YouTube, I could not play streaming videos at USA TODAY’s site or videos on other sites. Safari on iPhone supports Apple’s Quicktime video player but not Adobe Flash or Windows Media Video.

You can access Google maps to search for pizzerias, gas stations or whatever. But you must manually enter your whereabouts for driving directions; iPhone does not have GPS for pinpointing your location.

E-mail: Easy to use; work e-mail problematic

It?s a cinch to set up popular e-mail accounts such as AOL, Gmail and Yahoo; iPhone supports industry standard e-mail account types (known as POP or IMAP in tech lingo, as well as rich HTML mail). You can determine how message previews are displayed (up to five lines) and how often the phone should check for incoming messages. Messages are easy to read. You can pinch to enlarge the text or any images included in the body of the mail. You can view and zoom in on Word, Excel, JPEG and PDF attachments but not edit them.

Alas, I was unable to test my USA TODAY e-mail with iPhone because our company tech department raised questions about the security settings Apple required with our Microsoft Exchange servers. Apple insists corporate e-mail through the phone is safe. But because the product is so new, many businesses remain cautious. If receiving corporate e-mail is important, check with your tech department first.

Text messaging works well. SMS messages are kept as an ongoing conversation so you can resume a dialogue where you left off.

Battery: Worries abound, but so far so good

Folks who recall problems with early iPod batteries are fretting that iPhone, too, doesn’t have a removable battery. IPhone comes with one year of hardware repair coverage and up to two years of tech support while subscribed to an AT&T contract. You’d have to send the device to Apple or presumably a third party to swap a spent battery.

Apple recently raised iPhone battery estimates to up to eight hours of talk time, six hours of Internet use, seven hours of video playback, 24 hours of audio playback and more than 10 days of standby. Your actual mileage will vary, of course.

Battery life didn’t prove to be a big problem in my unscientific tests — a mix of calling, surfing, listening and watching. Still, it’s a good idea to charge it overnight. You receive warnings when you have just 20%, 15%, 10% and 5% of power remaining. You can charge the phone in its dock, through the supplied plug or through an iPod accessory.

Accessories: Not many now, but just wait

Expect the usual gaggle of cellphone and iPod-type accessories, though there will be relatively few at launch. IPhone has a standard iPod dock connector, but because of possible interference from its wireless radios, it won’t work with all existing iPod accessories.

I was able to play music through my Bose SoundDock speaker system. To combat interference, iPhone offered to switch to “airplane mode.” That turns off all radios, meaning you won’t receive any calls.

I couldn’t use iPhone with a Belkin iPod cassette car adapter. Future accessories will carry a “Works with iPhone” logo.

Even a prodigy needs to grow up. I’d love iPhone to deliver my company mail, tap into a faster data network and provide expandable memory, instant messaging and GPS. The price could be lower, too. My wish list aside, iPhone’s splash of a debut is worthy of the attention it is receiving.

How you’ll activate it…

Typically, you activate a cellphone in the store when you buy it. Whether you’re an existing AT&T customer or a newbie, Apple wants you to activate iPhone and pick your wireless plan at home through iTunes, without having to wait in line.

There’s a one-time $36 activation fee, and you must sign up for a two-year service agreement with AT&T.

A series of straightforward setup screens in iTunes walks you through the activation drill.

If you’re an AT&T customer, you can replace a handset on your account with iPhone or add a line to an existing account. You can also transfer an existing mobile phone number from another wireless provider.

The process takes only a few minutes, after which you can sync the device with your music, videos, photos, TV shows, calendars, movies, e-mail accounts and Web-browser bookmarks.

…and what you’ll pay

Across all the plans, which are pretty aggressively priced, you get unlimited data for e-mail and the Web, plus visual voice mail. So what you’re choosing are voice minutes and SMS text messages.

Monthly price	Voice minutes	SMS text messages	Night and weekend minutes
$59.99	450	200	5,000
$79.99	900	200	Unlimited
$99.99	1,350	200	Unlimited
$119.99	2,000	200	Unlimited
$169.99	4,000	200	Unlimited
$219.99	6,000	200	Unlimited
Notes: Under all plans, you can upgrade to more SMS text messages: 1,500 additional SMS text messages for $10 or unlimited SMS for $20. In all cases, rollover minutes, unlimited data (Web/e-mail) and unlimited mobile-to-mobile are included.

Jim Jamieson
Province

What is it?

Motorola Bluetooth Active Headphones S9

Price:$149.99; $189.99 with iPod adapter

Why you need it: You’ve strangled yourself too many times with your iPod’s or phone’s cord. And there’s a certain techno-cachet that comes with this cool gizmo.

Why you don’t: Paying that much for cutting the cord seems a little high. You’ll wait till you can have a chip implanted.

Our rating: 4 mice

Bluetooth technology seemed to take forever to get here, and when it did, only the early adopter could afford it.

But the cost of Bluetooth-enabled devices — which wirelessly stream data up to 10 metres — has come down as the market grew, and Motorola’s new headphones are an example of just how far the technology and the design have progressed.

The S9, first of all, is thin and light as a feather (28 grams), and its behind-the-head style is very comfortable.

It also provides excellent sound quality when hooked up to an iPod or other music source and is fully functional as a mobile-phone headset with Bluetooth-compatible devices.

We found the S9 to be straightforward to “pair” to an iPod or an enabled phone — a process that allows the two devices to synchronize with each other.

Once that process is completed, the earphones — which have rechargeable batteries — provide about six hours of listening.

The headphones are designed to be used for both music and phone purposes simultaneously and they will automatically

mute music when a call comes in.

The unit is also meant to be used at the gym — it is sweat- and water-resistant.

Controls for calls, volume and track are right on the headphones.

The S9 also features detachable ear buds, with several sizes in the box so a good fit can be obtained for all ear-canal sizes.

The Motorola Bluetooth S9 is available at electronics stores.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

But nothing’s official and Apple has yet to name a service provider here

Paul Marck
Sun

EDMONTON – Gotta have Apple Inc.’s iPhone? Talk to Colm Over or Darcy Smith at Cellular FX & Repair in Edmonton.

No, they don’t have any of the most-talked-about-and-hyped gadgets since the ubiquitous iPod.

But they will be among the first with the newest tech toy, even though a Canadian launch date hasn’t been announced for iPhone.

The iPhone rockets into the U.S. market next Friday.

“I’m told mid-July, late July is when to expect them,” says Over, who sells “unlocked” cellphones that are not connected to specific networks or cell companies.

People buy unlocked GSM phones if they travel a lot or simply want the latest phones ahead of Rogers and Fido. As an independent retailer, Over usually gets new phones three months ahead of big-name carriers.

The iPhone has created such a buzz in the U.S. that even comedian Stephen Colbert has joked about his inability to get one ahead of everybody else, and a Craigslist ad has reportedly offered $10,000 to get an iPhone right now.

No Canadian service provider has been announced to carry iPhone. Internet blog sites are alive with buzz that Rogers is trying to get an iPhone deal, but Apple is too busy with next week’s U.S. kickoff to get anything going yet in Canada.

Rogers and Apple Canada are both mum on the subject of iPhone, which uses global GSM technology. Neither Telus nor Bell’s networks are GSM compatible.

Since the iPhone was introduced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at March’s MacWorld convention, buzz has grown about the touch-screen phone that has no keypad and only a single button. It doubles as an iPod music player and Web device, with other leading features to put it into a category of its own.

People have been calling for months about iPhone’s availability in Edmonton, says Over.

“It’s getting to be crazy,” he says.

The July availability to take pre-sale orders is the best advice Over has heard so far.

Vicken Kanadjian, an electronics and cellphone wholesaler in Montreal, says he’s banking on a summer Canadian release for iPhone in Canada.

“You can’t expect the iPhone before the end of July, that’s what we hear,” says Kanadjian.

He says there won’t be much advance notice from Apple.

“Apple’s going to release it at the last second. They’re really in control of their marketing strategy.”

Kanadjian expects pre-orders will sell out the iPhone before they are even shipped.

“It will definitely be revolutionary. It’s highly anticipated. It will definitely rock the market.”

It is not likely that iPhone’s relatively high list price — $499 US south of the border — will deter those who want the latest phone bling.

“More kids than anybody are after expensive phones,” says Cellular FX’s Smith. “It’s a status symbol. It used to be what you drive or how new your car is. Now it’s your phone and electronics.”

Many analysts think Apple has a hit on its hands. Indeed, many believe it will change the cellphone industry and Apple permanently.

“This is the most anticipated telephone since Alexander Graham Bell’s,” Juniper Research analyst Michael Gartenberg told the San Jose Mercury News.

Bernard Courtois, president of the Information Technology Association of Canada, thinks Canada’s Research In Motion (RIM) Ltd. has a more revolutionary product in the telecom realm with its BlackBerry.

Touch screens and multi-functional phones are not new, he says.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Sun

1. Digital Photo Keychain, $40 US

If you want to trump your colleagues who are always showing off baby pictures or their latest vacation shots around the water cooler, pull out this 3.6-cm keychain that holds 56 photos in its 512-Kb flash memory. It even comes in a slideshow model. It has a rechargeable lithium battery, giving you a week or two of bragging time. Comes in other shapes and sizes, with the smallest a 2.8-centimetre round version. www.taoelectronics.com.

2. Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot K850i camera phone

At five-megapixels, with an auto focus, Xenon flash, photo fix to improve light balance, and BestPic for taking action shots, this is a camera that incidentally lets you make calls. Switch to camera mode and the illuminated icons on the keyboard show you the keys that are short-cuts for the digital zoom and other photo functions. Sony Ericsson is releasing it in North America beginning in the last quarter of this year.

3. Stanley MaxLife2 Tripod Flashlight with Titanium Finish, $30

The folks at Stanley who came up with this new line of stand-up flashlights must know what it’s like to be rooting around clogged drains in a dark basement. Or trying to balance a flashlight in one hand and a book in the other when the power goes out. It has a hands-free tripod with an articulating head, and it can switch from spot to floodlight. The line also has the Mini-Tripod version at $20, and a cute little keychain model at $10.

4. HP Compaq 2710p Notebook PC, $1,999, not on store shelves yet

HP rolled out a raft of new notebooks at its mobility summit in Shanghai recently, among them the ultra-light 2710P that does double duty as a conventional notebook, with a 31-cm swiveling touch screen that turns it into a tablet PC. At 1.65 kilograms, or 3.6 pounds, and 2.8 cm thin, this skinny notebook doesn’t carry a lot of weight, but it delivers a hefty punch. It has a microphone, an optional built-in camera, and for those of you who just can’t stop working — or playing — a night light that shines on the keyboard. Add to that a business card scanner, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an optional battery pack that bumps your battery time up to 10 hours. You’ll miss a DVD drive though — dropping that weight comes with a cost — and you may want to get the optional docking station to add that.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

B.C. companies protect infrastructure with high-tech equipment

Brian Morton
Sun

Global concerns about terrorist attacks on critical infrastructure facilities are creating new business for Vancouver-area companies.

Extreme CCTV Inc. of Burnaby has developed a moving surveillance camera that can record images in hazardous locations without causing any sparks or electric arcs that might trigger an explosion.

Locations such as oil refineries are frequently listed as potential terrorist targets and therefore prime users of surveillance equipment.

The new camera is installed inside a steel casing to help it withstand the pressure of a blast, whether it be from attacks or accidents.

“The primary reason for this is for protection against terrorist attacks,” Jack Gin, president and CEO of Extreme CCTV, said in an interview Wednesday of the company’s new Moondance Mic1-440, a pan-tilt-zoom camera.

“We need security at critical locations, like oil refineries, fuel handling [facilities], pipelines, places where they make nitrogen or chlorine,” Gin said.

The camera is important because it operates safely in highly flammable areas, he said. “In a hazardous environment, an ordinary camera could cause destruction by overheating, sparking and electrical arcing. There could be a surge in voltage. But this camera operates in a benign fashion. It’s designed so that there’s no way the equipment could ignite a fire. Even if something burned inside [the camera casing], there’s no flame path to the outside.”

Gin said Extreme CCTV has already sold several cameras to a U.S. arms manufacturer, whose name he wouldn’t disclose.

“We see a large market for this,” added Gin of the camera, which costs approximately $12,000. “This camera provides safe surveillance from a remote location. It’s a market that’s really growing because of the need for security in these areas. We’d be disappointed if it didn’t click in revenues in the millions of dollars.”

Meanwhile, North Vancouver-based OSI Geospatial Inc., which provides technology to help U.S. soldiers track their location, has hired the former head of the U.S. navy’s elite Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection Assessment Program to head a new U.S. business unit called Layered Security Solutions, which is designed to help protect U.S. infrastructure.

The new unit will be led by James Liddy, the former head of the U.S. navy’s elite Anti Terrorism/Force Protection Assessment Program and co-author of the book, Fight Back: Fighting Terrorism, Liddy Style.

Liddy said in a statement Wednesday that OSI Geospatial is “well positioned to offer unique technology solutions to the CIP [critical infrastructure protection] market, and I am confident that we will become a key solutions provider in the U.S. and internationally.”

The release stated that the critical infrastructure sectors include agriculture, banking and finance, chemical and hazardous materials, the defence industrial base, emergency services, energy, food, government, information technology and telecommunications, postal and shipping, public health and health care, transportation and drinking water, and water treatment systems.

Also, earlier this week, Richmond-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. announced that it has signed a one-year contract to help Canadian military forces uncover the supply chain for deadly roadside bombs and other explosive devices in Afghanistan.

The company’s information systems group vice-president, David Hargreaves, said MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates will collect information from a variety of existing sources, including ground-based and airborne surveillance systems, and apply a geographic-profiling technique.

“By combining the information with the background on how the perpetrators operate, you can produce threat maps that give you a probability of where their factories and meeting points and organization points are likely to be,” he said.

The value of the contract with Defence Research and Development Canada was not disclosed.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Edward C. Baig
USA Today

There’s a ton of terrific video on the Web, and a lot more stuff that’s plain goofy. (For evidence, look no further than some of the homegrown videos on YouTube.) You’d love to save clips on your computer to share a laugh with friends or watch off-line. Only the process, at least for non-techies, is too darn complicated.

On Tuesday, with the “beta” arrival of the latest RealPlayer software, RealNetworks hopes to simplify things. RealPlayer 11 is billed as the first media player to let you record and download videos from thousands of websites with a single click. The free software was unveiled this month at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.

The pre-release version I’ve been testing is buggy. But for the most part, the program’s chief bragging point — making it a cinch for you to capture unprotected video — works as promised. And RealPlayer 11 is less bloated and not as intrusive as earlier versions of the software.

Here’s what getting Real is all about:

How it works

After installing the software, a “Download This Video” button pops up whenever you move your mouse pointer over a video anywhere in cyberspace. Just click on the button to start downloading clips. It’s as simple as that; you do not have to separately launch the new RealPlayer.

What’s more, you can choose to download a clip at any point during the video, and the scene will be captured from the start. The download will proceed in the background even if you pause or stop watching. And you can download more than one video at the same time.

It’s addictive. At YouTube, Grouper, Metacafe, ESPN and USATODAY.com, among other sites, I fetched videos just because I could, covering everything from make-believe iPhone commercials to highlights of Bobby Nystrom’s Stanley Cup winning goal for the 1980 New York Islanders.

Videos are stored in the Downloads & Recording section of your RealPlayer library. The clip name is displayed, along with the date you imported it, the length and the Web address of the video source.

You can watch videos full-screen or burn copies to a disc. You’ll have to spring for a $29.99 RealPlayer Plus version to burn to a DVD; the free version lets you burn videos to a CD, where storage is more limited. The Plus version sports advanced video controls, among other features.

You can easily share the video link via e-mail with friends by clicking on a button that appears when you move the pointer over the screen. You can also place videos in automatic playlists (“one hour of favorites” or “clips I haven’t played for a while”).

Real says future versions of the player will let you transfer footage to portable devices such as an iPod. How easy that proves to be remains to be seen.

The player can also serve as a repository for music files. But it is not integrated with Real’s Rhapsody music service.

Restrictions

You cannot grab just any video. Clips that are embedded with digital rights management (DRM) copy restrictions are a no-no. So when I moved the mouse over a clip from the TV show House at Fox.com, a “Video Cannot Be Downloaded” button appeared in place of the Download This Video button. Confusingly, I often couldn’t grab a video even when the Download button showed up.

Real won’t prevent you from downloading copyrighted material that isn’t protected by DRM. It’s kind of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. As Real CEO Rob Glaser said onstage at D, “We’re like a video recorder. We are a piece of utility software that has no specific knowledge of anything about the copyright.”

Real is trying to be a responsible corporate citizen. If any videos you wish to download are accompanied by advertisements, the player will fetch the ads, too.

The new player is compatible with most major video formats, including Real, Windows Media, Flash and QuickTime. For now, it works only on Windows PCs through the Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox browsers. A Macintosh version is due later this year.

Hiccups

I ran into a few snags, which are probably attributed to the unfinished version I was testing. The player crashed when I attempted to transfer a couple of clips to a newly created playlist.

Post-crash, I received a message that my library may have gotten corrupted. Fortunately, I was able to repair the database.

The software crashed again after I’d downloaded a clip from Comedy Central of Steve Carell joining Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

RealPlayer 11 is worth having for video downloads alone. Assuming RealNetworks successfully eliminates the bugs, it will be even more of the real deal.

Four high-tech veterans create circuit card that brings big boys’ backing

Gillian Shaw
Sun

One day they are four guys sitting around public library meeting rooms and dreaming about their far-fetched plans to reinvent business computers.

The next day they’ve hit pay dirt, sitting on $34 million US in venture capital, and the heavy hitters in computer manufacturing are lining up to buy their computer chip technology that replaces traditional desktop computers with a puck-sized Internet-connected portal.

No microprocessor chips, no memory, no operating system, no hard drive, CD or DVD — it adds up to a stripped-down, low-cost, low-maintenance and even more importantly secure substitute that can replace full computers on corporate desks.

At the heart of the meteoric rise of the Burnaby-based Teradici Corp. is a seemingly simple concept — PC-over-IP.

“We started thinking that, rather than having desktop PCs sitting on everybody’s desk, why don’t we put those desktop PCs back into the data centre,” said Dan Cordingley, the company’s president, chief executive officer and one of its co-founders. “If we could do that, everything would be secure and very easy to manage.”

The answer to bridging that link between the user and the data centre was a chipset that compresses and converts the display data, along with the USB signals used by PC accessories, into the digital format of the Internet and corporate networks, thus creating PC-over-IP.

And because it’s part of a computer — the difference being the computer isn’t in a box sitting on the desk but rather in a data centre that could be in a another city — the person tapping into the keyboard gets the same features and capabilities, including sophisticated graphics and sound, as a full desktop PC.

“It is everything you have on a normal PC,” said Cordingley. “Only now rather than being in one of those beige boxes under your desk, it is now just a circuit card back at the data centre.”

The concept is the brainchild of Cordingley and three fellow tech veterans, who could have all retired as millionaires when the various companies they were involved in were bought up. Instead, they started meeting — in each other’s homes, in restaurants, in libraries — to discuss a new concept for delivering computing power to the desktops of large enterprises.

Cordingley’s resume reads from IBM to Intel, which bought the California company he worked for, Level One Communications, with stops at Spectrum Signal Processing and other tech companies in between. His co-founders include Dave Hobbs, a former vice-president of engineering and chief technical officer at Spectrum Signal Processing; Ken Unger, formerly director of engineering for VoIP products at Broadcom Corp., which bought out HotHaus Technologies where Unger had been a member of the engineering team; and Maher Fahmi, formerly a director of product development at PMC-Sierra.

Other companies have been able to produce the stripped-down PC replacements that are known as thin clients. But Teradici has gone much farther.

Thousands of kilometres farther, in fact, delivering PCs over the Internet by connecting the heart of the computer via the Internet instead of by a cable across a desk. The distance is only limited by simple physics — when it’s too great there could be too much latency and the performance would be sluggish. But across town or across regions works.

It makes it far easier for large companies and organizations to manage and maintain their computing resources, and delivers a powerful security boost to industries that are under increasing pressure to protect data and guard privacy.

The company has been operating under the radar, going from the early casual meeting places to a 55-person office in Burnaby. On Monday, it lifts the veil off its technology, launching it in New York at the Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association technology conference and exhibit.

While it hasn’t been overnight, the company has gone from incorporation in 2004 to signing on its first major client, IBM, within a few short years. And commercial delivery of its first products is expected in the third quarter of this year.

It first attracted the attention of Vancouver’s GrowthWorks Capital, which led the initial financing that saw the fledgling company get about $8.5 million US from GrowthWorks and the Business Development Bank of Canada. Another $8 million in venture capital came last year, and a further $18 million earlier this year, with the investment now expanded to include money from Silicon Valley, eastern Canada and the U.K.

“We were taking a big bet we could attract more venture capital in the short run rather than in the long run so they could get their first product to market,” said Joe Timlin, a vice-president of investments at GrowthWorks.

Not only were the dollars needed to reach commercialization substantially higher than for a software company, at the time the market was unknown.

“At the time we invested there was no market for their products,” said Timlin. “It is so innovative we were taking a bet the market would develop in such a way it could consume Teradici’s technology.

“These guys have not only boldly guessed where the market would go, but they have been good enough to actually influence where the market would go.”

The founders also won the support of some big names on the tech scene, and Timlin said having Kevin Huscroft, a founder of PMC-Sierra, on the board, along with Randy Groves, a former chief technology officer with Dell, only helped sell their story.

“These were not guys out of MBA programs or engineering programs founding a company on a whim and a hope,” he said of Teradici’s founding team.

Co-founder Hobbs, now Teradici’s chief architect, remembers long hours at home doing research and running simulations and meeting anywhere they could find space.

“In talking to people about the challenges large enterprises face, it would be, ‘How do you control software, how do you control security?’ There is the cost of maintaining all these disparate PCs on the desks.”

The feedback told them that if they could overcome the challenges in delivering the full PC experience without the PC box attached at the desk, it could win favour with customers.

“It was worth the risk,” said Hobbs. “If we could make it work, based on the market intelligence we were able to gather, it could be a very big market.”

Already it is making waves, largely thanks to the talent they have been able to find in Vancouver.

“The technical talent pool in Vancouver is really first-rate. We have been able to build Teradici with just fantastic engineering folks,” said Cordingley. “Our investors were amazed our chip came back and worked virtually 100 per cent right out of the gate.

“Within the first four weeks of delivering our first sample of the chip to IBM, they were demonstrating it to the major financial institutions on Wall Street.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Sun

Canon PowerShot TX1, $600

If you want to carry just one small camera in your pocket but still have all the functionality of a full range device that can even shoot HD video, consider the newly released PowerShot TX1 that puts it all in a package no bigger than a deck of playing cards. Its retro-style stainless steel case opens up to reveal an LCD screen that swivels just like the one on a camcorder. Add to that 7.1 megapixel, image stabilization, a 10 times optical zoom, improved face detection technology that can focus on up to nine faces in scene and red-eye correction with 14 shooting modes and this is pretty much a jack-of-all-trades photo/video device.

Epson Stylus Photo RX580, $250

There are millions of unprinted digital photos languishing on memory cards and hard drives and the folks who make printers are trying to change that with stepped up offerings to print those digital memories. Epson’s latest has a built-in, 2.5-inch colour LCD for viewing and editing images and you don’t have to hook up a computer to use it. All you need to do is plug in a memory card, a flash drive, your camera or cell phone to make prints. Restore colour to faded photos and make your own greeting cards with the RX580, one of Epson’s new ultra hi-definition photo printers that uses microscopically small droplets of the new six-colour Claria hi-definition ink.

Portable USB paper shredder, Kinlan Industrial, $17 US

If you’re really worried about identity theft, you can tuck this tiny portable shredder in your pocket and shred as you go. Also useful for making those telltale receipts disappear if you have a shopping habit you’d rather not share with your partner. At a mere 25 centimetres long and weighing 351 grams, it tucks in a computer case and works on USB, with an AC adapter or four AA batteries. www.kinlan.cn.

SOLO Commando Tote laptop bag, $90 US

Toting your laptop around in a Commando bag makes you look like one tough computer user. One of SOLO’s new Urban Collection it suggests a more military getting-down-to-business style than your average conservative black nylon case. The line also has its urban chic versions that share the same broken-in and ruggedly relaxed look.Check www.solocases.com for retail and online sellers.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007